Father Peter Young was honored on Monday with the naming of a section of Albany’s South Ferry Street.Young established a number of charity organizations that offered addiction treatment, job training, and housing to people for over 50 years.
One of the first people who taught me that continuing to arrest people for addiction was the wrong course of action was Father Young. We had to provide housing for folks. According to interim Albany Police Chief Brendan Cox, “we needed to get people treatment; we needed to get people employment.”
He gave everyone a boost. Because he thought that was what God had asked us to do, he gave everyone a second, third, and fourth chance. And every day he lived out that faith. We are a better city as a result. According to Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, “for that reason, we are standing here today to make sure that we remember him and that we have the ability to speak about him to those future generations.”
At the age of 90, Father Young passed away in 2020.